Scuola Grande di San Rocco

In the heart of Venice where art, culture and devotion meet The Scuola Grande di San Rocco is a lay confraternity founded in 1478. The popularity of the cult of St. Roch, whose remains had been in the possession of the brotherhood since 1485, contributed to the group’s rapid expansion to the extent that it became the richest Scuola in the city.
At that point, the brotherhood decided to build a monumental new headquarters and engaged Tintoretto to decorate it with his most celebrated pictorial cycle, illustrating episodes from the New and Old Testaments. It is the only one of the historic Scuole Grandi to have survived the fall of the republic.
It is a unique site, where over 60 paintings are preserved in their original setting in a building that has hardly undergone any alteration since its construction.
The confraternity is still active today, carrying out its traditional charitable duties as well as looking after its extraordinary artistic patrimony.